Day 28

Seems we are still doing the two-steps-forward-one-step-back dance. After an unprecedented two good days in a row, we had a bit of a scare on Friday morning. Samuel woke up with a 9 out of 10 pain rating and was very specific about where it hurt.....his transplanted kidney. He also threw up a couple times and his white count was higher than the day before. A combination of pain killer and sedative helped make him more comfortable and able to sleep through most of the day. They dosed him with a load of prednisone (to reduce inflammation) and decided to wait it out. By evening, the pain was an 8; and by this morning it was a 6.

It is possible that one medication was inhibiting another medication from adequately suppressing his immune system which, in turn, allowed his body to have an inflammatory response to the foreign kidney. Samuel has blood drawn very morning at 6:00. The lab results help the doctors know which medications need to be adjusted. There is likely to be more tweaking as they transition Samuel to oral medications.

Today was a good day. Not much eating, but a little walking and a very little reading.....first book reading that Samuel has done in over six weeks! For those of you who don't know Samuel, he is rarely without a book to read. I know that he is really sick when he is not interested in reading.

Samuel's tube feeding formula was adjusted this evening to reduce the amount of protein he is getting in hopes of slowing down his rising blood urea nitrogen. His potassium has also gotten too high so he was given a dose of a potassium binder at bedtime.

In case I haven't mentioned this lately....Samuel's new kidney is really working....not perfectly (see paragraph above), but definitely working!! His creatinine level was down to 2.34 this morning!! A normal healthy level is about 0.6 to 1.2. After all that Samuel and this kidney have been through, this is truly amazing! Praise be to the Lord God Almighty!